Challenges Drive Dealer to Stop Selling and Start Teaching

GREEN BAY, WI. Local John Deere dealer, Riesterer & Schnell, educated area producers and ag service providers about different ways to optimize their current planters and technology to maximize their operation. Research, information and ideas were provided by technology and agronomy specialists during a February 13th Planting for Profit event, held at the Rock Garden in Green Bay, Wisconsin. With a John Deere DB60 planter with an ExactEmerge Retrofit kit on site, approximately 150 growers met to learn how they could more fully utilize their current planting
 
technology. “With current market challenges like low commodity and milk prices, it’s important that growers learn different ways to get more out of their current planting operation.”, said Joe Sinkula, Integrated Solutions Manager at Riesterer & Schnell. “During the event, our focus was on education, open discussion and new ideas, not about selling iron.”
 

Growers had the opportunity to ask hard questions and have discussion with a panel of agronomists, as well as participate in three talks covering various planting optimization opportunity areas. Joe Szczepanski from Riesterer & Schnell discussed how to get more out of existing planter investments. Szczepanski examined how the future really depends on what you do today. If growers measure and record seed placement and seed trench quality, it leaves room for future improvement. He said, “Every grower can relate to bottlenecks in their planting operation. The key is to find out what they are. By utilizing team meetings and technologies like JD Link, LEAF, among others, profit can be gained.”
 

Sinkula taught customers how to utilize technology to optimize their entire planting operation. A huge eye-opener for a lot of growers was Joe’s question, “What does 3 minutes represent on your farm?” If growers get setup files to equipment prior to the planting season, time is saved, and in-field performance is improved. He also covered the benefits of using interior boundaries for tillage and planting, planting headlands last and how collecting and analyzing data can allow changes to be made in the future.
 

Matt Hatcher of John Deere and Riley Bricco from Riesterer & Schnell brought real-life examples into the classroom by discussing the value of performing on-farm test trials. Over the last 3 years, Matt has performed fertilizer trials on his 4000-acre farm in Northeast Iowa. Matt used the John Deere Operations Center to analyze his harvest data and found out whether products were losing him money or giving him a return on his investment. Riley demonstrated how using the Riesterer & Schnell Precision Farming Solutions Portal can do all of the financial legwork for an operation by building profit/loss maps and tracking inventory of agronomic products to provide a true cost of production.
 

Derek Ducat of Ducat Farms posted about the Planting for Profit event, “What a great meeting, not pushing products but profitable ideas, not that I don’t like their products. #BestMeetingThisOffSeason.”

Riesterer & Schnell will be holding more events like this in 2018. The lineup includes events on application, as well as agronomy. To learn more about these events, growers can contact local Riesterer & Schnell representatives.